Wednesday, February 9, 2011

Prince and Princess Henry about to visit Siam

February 9, 1899


After spending Christmas and New Year's in Hong Kong, Prince and Princess Henry of Prussia are preparing to "pay a state visit to the court of Siam at Bangkok, " reports the Marquise de Fontenoy.  Afterward, the Princess will return to Germany in April,  "traveling across America," to  New York, where she will board a German liner for Hamburg or Bremen.

Princess Henry will be the first Princess "of any reigning House of Europe" to visit the court of Siam or that of China, although a visit to Peking has not yet been decided.   It is understood that the Princess will not visit Japan, as Prince Henry "greatly resented the response by the Mikado" when Henry arrived in the Orient eighteen months ago.

At that time, Prince Henry "intimated his intention of visiting the Mikado," but was dissuaded from doing so as the "Japanese authorities were reluctant to undertake the responsibility for his personal safety."

The Russians have an "intense hostility" toward everything Japanese due to the "unfortunate attempt" to assassinate the present Czar when he visited Japan some years ago.  The Japanese are afraid of "incurring the enmity of Germany" if something similar happened to Prince Henry.

Princess Henry will be the "third woman" of Europe's reigning royal houses to visit the United States after Infanta Eulalia of Spain, and the former Empress of Brazil, a Princess of Bourbon-Two Sicilies.   The Empress and her husband made a "prolonged tour" of the United States at the time of the Philadelphia exhibition.
Princess Henry is the former Princess Irene of Hesse and By Rhine.  Her youngest sister is married to Nicholas II of Russia.

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